'intentionality won’t work if you are in a state of threat'

I have been attending a live with Dr Stephen Porges (the man behind the Polyvagal Theory) and he said something that really stayed with me and I wanted to share it with you.

He said “intentionality won’t work if you are in a state of threat”. 

And of course it won’t!

Your nervous system has this beautiful job to keep you safe. When your body detects that you are not safe it does everything to protect you. It’s just like one of those celebrity’s bodyguards: they sense that something is not right and jump in front of the celebrity to protect them regardless!

There is not time to think and engage your thinking brain. It’s reaction time. That is why your executive functions won’t work well when you are dysregulated. This is why we experience the famous “I really wanted to do it, I know it would really help me, but I couldn’t”. 

And I mean, let’s face it, it’s harder when you have already a possible 30% delay in your executive functions because of your ADHD 💁‍♀️😅

But what he says it’s really what’s behind behaviours. It’s not because you lack of intentionality, it’s because you are in a state of protection. 

Your state will determine your story, your thoughts, your behaviours and your body feelings. 

So please, next time you beat yourself up for not doing the thing and you are about to tell yourself mean things, remember what Dr Porges said. We are physiologically built this way to survive. 

You are not broken, late to the societal party, horrible, lost, incapable or [insert whatever]. You just have an amazing 24/7 bodyguard that loves the s**t out of you! 

It just doesn’t understand brain language, so we need to learn the body language to feel safe and change that story. 

ONE. STEP. AT. THE. TIME. 

Ps. picture of me with protection gear to fight a toxic substance, totally unrelated- or not 🤔😂